And after making changes to the rearguard, Johnson was pleased with how the reshuffled defence coped against the Lions, pointing to the performances of Grand, Howson and Moran and how they dealt with the various challenges they came up against.

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“It’s not something that we planned for. We found out on the way up here. Grandy was absolutely superb against arguably the quickest lad in the league playing on the right wing," said Johnson.

"He didn’t look out of place. His positioning is unbelievable and then it’s obviously difficult for Steve.

"He’s been made a bit of a scapegoat in the sense that he came out of the team after Blyth, but I thought he was absolutely towering today.

"We know all what Jon’s about, he’s a very good footballing centre half. We’ve had loads and loads of individual chats with him about toughening him up because he’s a good kid, a nice lad from a great background, but he needs to be a bit more streetwise.

"I thought today he was absolutely horrible against the two big fellas up top for them and he’s deserved his goal because that’s a brave header knowing that someone’s coming in behind him. There were good performances in that area of the pitch."

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One negative from the day was the substitution of captain Scott Burton, who was withdrawn from action before the hour mark following a recurrence of a calf injury he suffered a few weeks ago.

But Johnson insists the most important thing was to 'stop the rot' after back-to-back defeats against Blyth Spartans and AFC Telford United and feels the Blues will be in even better shape when their injured players return.

Johnson said: "The main thing for us today was stopping the rot in terms of the two defeats and now we can look ahead to the home games and hopefully send people home with a bit more enthusiasm and looking at it and going ‘actually, there’s a little bit more to what we’re trying to do here’.